Bomb targeting prison officer claimed by ‘New IRA’: BBC

A group calling itself the IRA says it planted a bomb under a prison officer’s van in Northern Ireland, the BBC reported Monday, after police warned of a possible upsurge of violence around a historic anniversary.

The group, also referred to as the New IRA (Irish Republican Army), reportedly claimed responsibility to the broadcaster for the Semtex bomb which exploded in Belfast on Friday, injuring the 52-year-old.

Four people — three men aged 34, 41 and 45 plus a woman aged 34 — were arrested in Belfast Sunday evening, police said in a statement.

The group’s statement to the BBC said the prison officer was targeted because he was involved in training prison officers who work on a wing where dissident republicans are housed at Maghaberry high-security prison, southwest of Belfast.

On Friday, police in Northern Ireland warned militants were planning to launch attacks marking the 100th anniversary of Ireland’s Easter Rising against British rule, a revolt which paved the way for Irish independence.

On Saturday, police found two separate explosive devices they described as “viable” on residential streets in predominantly Catholic and nationalist west Belfast.

And on Sunday, another was found in Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s second-biggest city.

Some 3,500 people were killed during a mostly sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted more than three decades and pitched groups of Catholics and nationalists, who wanted Northern Ireland to become part of Ireland, against pro-British Protestants and unionists.

Much of the violence was brought to an end by the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement that created a power-sharing coalition in the province.